According to a friend of mine who is working on Orion, they desperately need someone to go in there in clean out the bureaucracy. Any change to the design, no matter how small, has to clear dozens of bureaucrats, which have hung on to the organization like leeches for decades.

Major changes have become downright impossible. The original plan for Orion was a completely new design that offered several aerodynamic improvements, but the bureaucrats threw it out, because it was too big a change from the old tried-and-true designs.

While there is certainly something to be said for playing it safe and sticking with known-good technology, the bureaucracy keeps NASA from making any revolutionary leaps forward.

So yes, NASA's future will be nice and consistent, barring major changes by the new admin. But it will be a nice, consistent decay into irrelevancy. If Bolden shakes things up a bit, then NASA might be able to start making the huge leaps that it was once known for. I wouldn't count on it though.

Fixing the Constellation / Orion program is not really going to fix the problem. "Go to the Moon, again!" and "Go to Mars!" are not strategic objectives. They are relics of the Cold War, where space exploration is viewed as a trophy. We got there first!

We spent a decade and over a hundred billion on a space station, only to yank the transportation system out from under it without preparing another first, and change the plan to: "abandon it a few years after its completion, never funding the science

"We need to think about space access as an economic stimulus on the nature of the trans-continental railroads. We need to build an infrastructure to get to orbit reliably, then the moon reliably, then the asteroids and beyond."

Honest question: Why ?

How is the average American going to benefit from such a venture ?

What are the running costs going to be ?

What are the yields going to be (space vacations ? asteroid mining ?... ????) ?

I grew up with dreams of space exploration. I thought sending people to the m

Now I realize that if people actually want to go to space, then there's a demand in the market that isn't being filled. Companies can profit by figuring out how to fill that demand. They'll try and fail a lot but they'll use their own money to do it.

No, they won't. Companies are not necessarily interested in advancing humanity, but getting ahead in the next 1-5 years. There is very little incentive for a private company to spend 15 billion dollars a year on anything that won't pay off in a decade. (If you don't believe me, start your own company sometime!)

Governments can fund BIG projects with uncertain but (if successful) huge outcomes. America became a world superpower (in part) because it's not afraid to fund such things. I would rather have the government triple NASA's budget rather than buy a couple more golf balls for GM execs...

Unfortunately, as long as the average techie in the USA has this myopic pseudo-libertarian "if it's worth doing some private company is going to do it" attitude, our children will only dream of the the glory days when there were Americans who walked on another heavenly body. By then, the expertise (and the infrastructure) to do such things may have been irretrievably lost.

[The best thing Obama or any other leader can do is to inspire a clear and concrete vision for the next 10 years and put in the framework to support it. But this boils down to general political will, which is sadly lacking].

im replying to this point because my finger slipped when I was moderating and I gave it the wrong moderation point! By posting I'm hoping the system will remove my errant moderation point. (there's no undo I think for moderation points).

Have you read your first link? Besides, have you ever seen the cockpit of a fighter before? let alone the space shuttle? He was a damned test pilot, his whole job was to fly questionable craft at ridiculous speeds, i'm sure he knows how to spot and fix technical problems. Now he's piloting NASA, i think he'll do fine.

The last guy, Griffin, had 7 degrees and i think everyone was unhappy with him. So we gave an academic a shot, now let's try someone else.

Selected by NASA in May 1980, Bolden became an astronaut in August 1981. His technical assignments included: Astronaut Office Safety Officer; Technical Assistant to the Director of Flight Crew Operations; Special Assistant to the Director of the Johnson Space Center; Astronaut Office Liaison to the Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance Directorates of the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Kennedy Space Center; Chief of the Safety Division at JSC; Lead Astronaut for Vehicle Test and Checkout at the Kennedy Space Center; and Assistant Deputy Administrator, NASA Headquarters. A veteran of four space flights, he has logged over 680 hours in space. Bolden served as pilot on STS-61C (January 12â"18, 1986) and STS-31 (April 24â"29, 1990), and was the mission commander on STS-45 (March 24, 1992 â" April 2, 1992), and STS-60 (February 3-11, 1994).

Bolden was the first person to ride the Launch Complex 39 slidewire baskets which enable rapid escape from a shuttle on the launch pad. The need for a human test was determined following a launch abort on STS-41-D where controllers were afraid to order the crew to use the untested escape system.

That does not imply that he is a design engineer, which is what is required. The head of NASA does not need to do design himself, but he needs to think like a designer, and recognize the likely limitations of every design and of every test of every design.

The director of engineering of an electronics engineering company (who hired
me) said that fewer than 1 in 20 people who have engineering degrees and call
themselves engineers actually have much technical knowledge. More than 95% of
electronics engineers are not able to create simple electronic designs.

It is more reasonable to guess that the new NASA head has no design
experience at all. The careful thinking required of a successful design
engineer does not mix well with a test pilot's taking severe chan

I think it is worthy to note that he also achieved the rank of Major General (two-star general)... in of all things the U.S. Marine Corps. That is also by itself an impressive accomplishment in a branch that is loathsome to do promotions of any kind... at least compared to the other military branches. If it were merely for his accomplishments as an astronaut, he should have been merely a full Colonel, as it typical for most retired astronauts.

This also indicates a level of leadership skills, showing that the Marine Corps would be willing to trust him with a group of Marines at least as numerous as the number of employees that can be found at NASA. The NASA administrator and a division commander (often a Major General) could be considered quite comparable in terms of responsibilities.

Why this might be a point of contention to show a lack of qualifications boggles my mind.

not to quibble with your comment "fly questionable craft at ridiculous speeds" yes he was test pilot, but not testing the aircraft he was flying, he was an ordnance test pilot, testing new bombs. Big difference, New aircraft test pilots usually come out of the air force TPS at Edwards AFB. I have tons of respect for anyone that has real combat time especially in the Vietnam era aircraft. He'd be OK in my book, the techies usually don't make good managers in the NASA environment - better to have an ex Mari

What's uncertain is how well an experienced pilot with very little technical knowledge [wikipedia.org] can run a huge agency that has extremely complicated technical problems.

This is a popular meme amongst the technically-inclined (a group in which I include myself), but when it comes down to it, a NASA administrator with a high level of technical expertise is largely what got us into the current mess we're in. Nobody would dispute that the prior administrator, Michael Griffin [wikipedia.org] is a technical expert, with several masters degrees (aerospace, civil, and electrical engineering) and a PhD in aerospace engineering.

Unfortunately, as often happens with us technical types, he ended up getting obsessed with a particular technical idea and ended up blocking out potentially-superior alternatives. In Griffin's case, he designed a novel shuttle-based manned rocket (using a solid rocket as a first-stage) prior to becoming administrator, and once he became administrator he put NASA's weight behind his pet design and clamped down on engineers who raised concerns. According to some recently-leaked NASA documents, the supposedly-unbiased ESAS study which selected NASA's current rocket design in fact gave safety exemptions to Griffin's pet design [selenianboondocks.com] while unfairly penalizing competing designs. Fast forward to the present, and it's looking like the issues with Griffin's design (now called the Ares I) are fundamental design problems with costs ballooning skywards.

While technical proficiency is nice, it's not the most important thing in a manager of a program like NASA. Far more important is the ability to judge things in an unbiased manner, and being able to listen to your subordinates when they voice concerns.

That's a very knowledgeable reply, in my opinion.
Your last paragraph: "While technical proficiency is nice, it's not the most important thing in a manager of a program like NASA. Far more important is the ability to judge things in an unbiased manner, and being able to listen to your subordinates when they voice concerns."

What is absolutely necessary is both technical proficiency and managerial ability. If NASA cannot find a leader with both, it would be better to minimize NASA projects until one could

What is absolutely necessary is both technical proficiency and managerial ability. If NASA cannot find a leader with both, it would be better to minimize NASA projects until one could be found.

I'm not sure I agree. Both are preferable, but only managerial ability is absolutely necessary. A good manager can make up for gaps in their technical knowledge by appointing a good technical staff and setting up an environment in which they can give quality advice. If you have a bad manager, there's really nothing you can do to make up for their management shortcomings. In fact, I think if you have a scenario where you have an organization as vast as NASA [nasa.gov] and you have the head administrator trying to micro

You said, "A good manager can make up for gaps in their technical knowledge by appointing a good technical staff and setting up an environment in which they can give quality advice."

The problem is this: If the good manager doesn't know a huge amount about technology and design, he or she cannot know who is good technically, and therefore cannot appoint a good technical staff. He or she will instead appoint those who are politically attractive.

I seriously doubt the overall NASA head sits in on the interviews for particular engineers.

The only problem I foresee is that he might have some trouble adapting to the level of follow-through in his new command, being from a background where delivering on your commitments is a somewhat higher priority.

I don't see anything about the racial bias in white's voting patterns. In fact going by the voting patterns of Asians and Hispanics whites should have voted 65% for Obama - which would have easily won him the election blacks or not. Way to push racism on one group while ignoring any others.

Used to be, back when I was in high school, that we listened to Kennedy's speeches about space and dreamed of becoming astronauts. NASA, in those days, was something of a heroic world where the best and brightest grouped to find ways to get men to the moon and return them safely to Earth.

We looked at the Alan Shepards, Louis Armstrongs, and Buzz Aldrins as supermen. They were our Sanjaya back then. The right stuff, they had it, and we wanted to have it too.

But now, NASA is just a sad shadow of what it used to be. The agency is hamstrung by lack of funding, but more than that, in the decades that have passed since I was a boy, educational standards have dropped to such an extent that even if we were to increase funding to reasonable levels, that we'd need to bring in foreign contractors just to make up the intelligence gap.

The average American doesn't care about space. They care about what is directly in front of them. Their car, their job (if they still have it), and their bellies. The curiousity and hunger for space is gone except in a scattered few.

It'll be another 12 years before any kind of rehabilition can take place. Until the next generation of kids passes through schools that encourage thought, discipline, and creativity and not just feel-good, everyone wins, it only matters if you try "education".

Lets put our gumption and know how to solving problems here. There's plenty to go around... and you know what? Plenty of people hack, build, problem solve, and explore right here.

This is very true, but it isn't the same issue as NASA's relationship to the politics surrounding Apollo. There was no pressing scientific or technical reason to push for a lunar landing before 1970. JFK made a credible political case for it. Lots of emotion, lots of handwaving, lots of Red Baiting. It just happened to be in a sphere the US is / was pretty good at (high tech).

Since then, NASA hasn't had the high profile testosterone producing issue to follow the lunar landings. Mars? A bit too far away to sustain the hype. ISS - an interesting case. It certainly has increased our ability to do long term grunt work in space - maintaining a manned station in a hostile environment, fixing said station without pre planning every bolt twist for five years, dealing with the myriad of details to do this without killing anyone and with significant budget constraints. That sort of thing doesn't get everybody's panties dropping even if it's more important in the long run.

Nope, we need some some of external challenge to get the gingiosm and the dollars flowing. If we can't find any helpful aliens, maybe we can cut a deal with the Chinese?

While I agree we need to explore our vast oceans more extensively, I completely and utterly agree space is empty and boring. There are so many things we don't know and haven't discovered (just like in the oceans). In fact, I would go so far as to say there's a whole universe out there we haven't explored. You're statement that space is boring and empty is highly suspect at best and downright wrong at worst.

And as for the space station, at the very least it gives us good data on how humans and possibly other living organisms can survive in space

We will master space or die out. We must not just explore it - we must make it our home. Anything less is to choose species suicide. As long as the survival of our species is limited to one planet, one star system, we are doomed to go the way of the dinosaurs. When we have escaped that perilous limit the Universe is ours. If we fail in this the Universe will clean the slate again and try once more to bring up a life form that can win.

The nation's 15-year-olds make a poor showing on a newly released international test of practical math applications, ranking 24th out of 29 industrialized nations, behind South Korea, Japan and most of Europe. U.S. students' scores were comparable to those in Poland, Hungary and Spain.

Why would we want a colony on Mars or the Moon? No magnetic shield makes radiation very hazardous. We can't live there.

Radiation pretty much mandates living under the surface of the moon or mars, and routing sunlight collected from mirrors on the surface to plants grown under the surface. It necessitates doing whatever needs to be done on the surface be done with robots instead of humans. With enough dedication, I suspect that those problems could be solved. The most pertinent reason to colonize is that if

After Apollo was over, one of the greatest collection of scientists and researchers got their walking papers when NASA was disassembled. Why not take an agency like that and say "now, go cure cancer" or "figure out how to power the Nation for the next 1000 years"?

In brief, because it doesn't work like that. The people who built Apollo would not have a clue about curing cancer, because rocket building and molecular biology have bloody little in common. Nor can they reliably make Einstein-like leaps of genius. No one can.

If there's any problem with educational priorites, it is that "intelligence" is valued over hard-earned competence, and leaps of genius are romanticised at the expense of all the small, important steps.

Apollo-era NASA was not a collection of scientists and researchers. It was an engineering job, first and foremost. They took stuff that was learned in 1943 Germany and applied it on a larger scale. Big engineering job, no research at all.

Apollo-era NASA was not a collection of scientists and researchers. It was an engineering job, first and foremost. They took stuff that was learned in 1943 Germany and applied it on a larger scale. Big engineering job, no research at all.

It isn't exactly true that there was no research at all. There was a whole bunch of it, but I'll admit that it was applied sciences (material science and engineering research) rather than "pure" science like what was done for the planetary science expeditions of the Mariner and Voyager space probes.

The V-2 rocket had about as much in common with the Saturn V as the ENIAC has with the computer you are reading this from... other than the same lead engineer was in charge of the design of both the V-2 and the

Largely because those scientists and researchers didn't really do much during Apollo. Apollo was an engineering triumph, and one only possible because the scientists and researchers had been busy during the 50's and were ready to hand over technology ready for final development and implementation.

I can't help but agree that "the right stuff" is no longer there. There are a few still, and it will never go away completely, but too many are just sitting on their fat bottoms smoking pot.

Today you are more successful in the US if you work as a lawyer, work as a stock broker or is a criminal than anything else. And none of the occupations are really building any future.

Of course - this is cynic...

If you are saying that the best and brightest are no longer working for NASA, I would have to completely agree. They don't get the best any more.

For some time, the best and brightest engineers have been snagged up by Wall Street. Wall Street even uses the term "rocket scientist" for the software developers and engineers who tweak the computers for automated trading at the brokerage houses. Good for those guys too, as Wall Street pays good money for those kind of services.

Usually, that's a TV, probably with coverage supplied by satellites, put there by someone's space program. I think NASA's failure (and all post-Apollo Presidents) has been to fail to point out the benefits, both direct and indirect, of space exploration. We're in a Reaganesque "government is stupid" era where national programs get the ingrained grief of being another step towards Socialism. Until that changes, we're not going to see bold spending. Hell, we can't even get national healthcare because of the contradictory argument that a government program won't fix what private healthcare ruined.

What will happen is someone will notice that nearly all (over 90%) of healthcare spending is spent on the last year of life. A law will be passed saying "let 'em die" more or less and this will rescue all healthcare in the US immediately - and the costs to the taxpayer will be 10% of what is spent today.

Not so popular with anyone over 50, but immensely popular with everyone under 50. And most of the people paying taxes, unless they happen to be older. The main difference between US healthcare and the rest of the world is that spending ratio. Eliminate it, and all will be well with healthcare spending.

But not so popular with anyone over 50.

I don't know about other countries with national healthcare plans, but where I live, it certainly isn't so that we don't spend on the dying. In fact it's common knowledge that a considerable amount of money is used for taking care of people their last year alive. My guess would be that this also is the case with a great deal of other countries having a national healthcare plan.The whole argument you're making assumes that democratic governments would be allowed to treat elderly like that, I doubt it for mos

Not so popular with anyone over 50, but immensely popular with everyone under 50. And most of the people paying taxes, unless they happen to be older. The main difference between US healthcare and the rest of the world is that spending ratio. Eliminate it, and all will be well with healthcare spending.

You can't think of a way to eliminate it, can you? You Americans have an amazing capacity to know the evidence that national healthcare would work better than what you have, and ignore it on principle. I hope I am never so stupid.

You might think that all people are so awful as to mistreat their parents, grandparents, and for that matter, other humans. But really, most of us aren't, and I suspect you wouldn't let an old person die in squalor just to save on a bit of tax. If you think would, you need to

It is a series of somewhat or even merely marginally related pork barrel projects created to provide economic stimulus to the aerospace engineering field. Each feast/famine cycle creates enough new engineers that when the next bust cycle happens there are enough unemployed engineers and technicians to start the next round of technology start-ups at pitiful wages.

Does it have much if anything to do with space itself? Not really. Since NASA is now going to be without a spacecraft to send up as

Well, frankly, NASA's the only part of the budget I don't mind seeing my tax dollars go to.

You go ahead believing your taxes go to Congressmen's paychecks and welfare and food stamps and Medicare...I'll hold out hoping that mine's being diverted to Orion.

I think you need to look a little closer to what is going on at NASA then. I love the idea of a government space exploration program. Having a bunch of heroes that do things like repairing a telescope in orbit and fixing it to be able to peer back in time to the very creation of the universe is something I find outstanding. This last shuttle flight was outstanding.

Unfortunately, there is no follow-up flight planned or anything like unto that to be done. The Space Shuttle program is canceled, and all tha

"NASA, in those days, was something of a heroic world where the best and brightest grouped to find ways to get men to the moon and return them safely to Earth."

That's because they were doing something we've never done before. Once we went to the moon, Americans (and humanity in general) were bored with the whole thing... been there, done that. During the Apollo 13 mission, networks cut over to Batman. Higher ratings, you know. Not even going to Mars will have the excitement that the Apollo program first had

The notion that children need longer in school is pc and daft! And the idea that you can teach a cohort of children for 15 years, as is now done in the UK is ludicrous. First children differ hugely in ability and are profoundly affected by their environment, here in Switzerland most 10 year olds are tri-lingual, because, in this tower of babel it is easy to become so. Since we stream and have different types of school, as do Germany and France, kids get the type of schooling their minds need and become satisfied and succeed at what they are asked to do, and when they leave, go on to higher education or ON THE JOB training.

Kids leave Berufschule or Ecole Artisanel at 17, reasonably numerate and able to read and write, normally in two languages.The academic kids go to University or one of the Federal Technical Highschools eg ETZ Zurich. There they can do a first degree or PhD as fast as they can, or more slowly.

The US system has stopped working since it seeks to achieve equality of achievement, not equal opportunity, which leads to endless erosion of standards since no one can fail. Thus you have a politicised school systems in which I pity the academically bright student.

You need to get your priorities right, get the bright kids out of normal High School and into somewhere where they can progress as fast as they can. In my view, 5-6 years in school is enough for anyone, two years for basic numeracy and literacy in two languages, two years maths and another one/two years in science. Before some of the teaching profession jump up and pontificate about History, Geography, Religious Studies and Social Sciences I say the kids can do RS on Sundays and pick up most of the rest as part of coursework, your kids should read the Constitution and Bill of Rights, ours UDI at Ruetli Field (1291).

"The average American doesn't care about space. They care about what is directly in front of them. Their car, their job (if they still have it), and their bellies. The curiousity and hunger for space is gone except in a scattered few."

They (correctly) perceive that manned space exploration won't do anything much for them, and that there need be no rush to get to places that will still be there a billion years from now.

We should be exploiting space with machines, and improving those machines, until they can

The Vietnamese name consists of two parts (the third letter unfortunately cannot be represented properly on/. - its html code is & # 7879 ; (ignore spaces)). Therefore, in my area (San Francisco Bay Area), where a lot of Vietnamese live, Vietnam is commonly called Viet Nam.

But, it doesn't look like Bolden got the job because he's got name recognition or he's a crowd favorite that will fill the seats in the local stadium. The problem with a lot of these jokers you're speaking of, they ascend through the ranks because of their reputations and not their abilities. Had Donald Trump or William Shatner gotten the nod, I'd be worried.

I've had the distinct pleasure of working with Jim Wetherbee, the man who has commanded more NASA shuttle flights than any other.

During that time I asked him why he left NASA. And I don't want to put words into his mouth, but suffice it to say I think he felt like the country's support of NASA is terrible and he decided he wanted to go somewhere that he could make a difference (because he no longer felt that way in NASA).

It's sad really. The space program, while expensive, has resulted in many great technological discoveries and inventions. And yet do you even know how small of a percent of our GDP goes towards it? It's pathetic.

I only hope this Bolden is something like Jim Wetherbee. If so, there may be some hope yet.

Why is it that whenever the President appoints/nominates someone for an important position, the word 'taps' is mentioned.

Given that this is Memorial Weekend, the word Taps is more associatied with the bugle call for fallen soldiers, and is approppriate for remembering the Challenger and Columbia crews, (and Grissom White and Chaffee)

Obama wants to combine efforts with the the Air Force, which has a MUCH larger space program and a proven launch capability (Delta IV, Atlas V) already in hand. We will get to the moon faster and cheaper adapting the Airforce's existing technology, rather than letting NASA continue to flail and fail with the Ares I.
Choosing Bolden has less to do with his background as an astronaut and more to do with the fact that he was a former general in the US Airforce.
Obama wants to "To boost cooperation between NASA and the Pentagon," by, "reviv[ing] the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which oversaw the entire space arena for four presidents, most actively from 1958 to 1973." - including during the original missions to the moon!
Insiders at Nasa, including former chief Michael Griffin are extremely resistant. They want to build and control their own technology (this should be familiar to anyone who has ever managed developers).
âoeNo one really has a firm idea what NASAâ(TM)s cost savings might be, but the militaryâ(TM)s launch vehicles are basically developed,â said John Logsdon, a policy expert at Washingtonâ(TM)s National Air and Space Museum who has conferred with Obamaâ(TM)s transition advisers. âoeYou donâ(TM)t have to build them from scratch.â
And thats the key. All quotes taken from: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aOvrNO0OJ41g [bloomberg.com]

I hope so. Ares is nonsense. One tiny rocket whose sole job is to lift the crew module into orbit, and it can't even do that; and one giant beast of a rocket that is so big that they can barely fit it through the doors of the assembly building, and will require completely new factories to build. Without the Ares V, Ares I has nothing to lift crew to, except to jump onto the ISS treadmill. Plus, that's all it can lift. No more supplies. No more spare pa

No, we don't need an ultra heavy lift vehicle, especially if building it is going to suck NASA funding for other projects dry. We don't have any cargo that is so massive that it needs that capacity on a single launch. A pair of Jupiters can launch whatever an Ares V can, and can do it for less money, both in terms of development, and in terms of operations. Also, because it is using existing technology, manufacturing, and staff, the Jupiters could be flying within 4-5 years, as opposed to the 11+ years i

You hit upon something that does need to be made apparent to other American taxpayers here:

NASA is not only smaller than the U.S. Air Force's space program, it is also smaller than the National Security Agency's space program as well. That is right, not just the #2 space program in America but actually it is #3... in terms of dollars spent and personnel employed on making things that go into space. That should be a hugely sobering thought by itself.

I hope that Obama actually does take a stronger interest in setting space policy, but his efforts to date seem rather lame and more resembling a policy of maintenance rather than trying to boldly set out a new course for NASA.

If what the U.S. Air Force is does is restricted only to the Defense Mapping Agency, I guess I live in a different universe than you do. It goes much more beyond that.

As for the NRO, yes, I'm willing to admit it is its own beast. No, that isn't the Air Force space program either.

I'll also admit that most of what goes on in the Department of Defense is mostly classified, even though quite a bit of it is related to intelligence gathering equipment and assets. That, of course, is mostly why the money spent

Bolden was a general in the USMC, not the USAF. That being said, as commander of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, he ran an "air force" larger than that of many good-sized countries. Not sure how much in the way of space operations any of the Marine aviation units do, though.

Obama wants to combine efforts with the the Air Force, which has a MUCH larger space program and a proven launch capability (Delta IV, Atlas V) already in hand.

Strictly speaking, the EELV rockets are more commercial boosters than the Air Force, and NASA would be dealing with Boeing and Lockheed-Martin rather than the Air Force. I do have a lot of hope for the EELV-based approach though, and it's also likely that a capsule adapted to the EELVs could also adapt later on to commercial vehicles from companies like SpaceX or Orbital.

As things currently stand, NASA's Ares I has been running into major problems, many believe it to have fundamental design flaws, and proje

When Bush was planning changes to NASA, the Liberals were up in arms complaining about how Bush would weaponize space. The quotes consisted of things like, "Space is free, we don't need to occupy it" and "Bush just wants to increase the US war machine."

I don't think Bush ever proposed merging the Air Force and NASA. NASA has always been civilian technology while the Air Force was military technology. If he did, I'm sure it would have bolstered the lame arguments of the lefties about weaponizing space.

Now here we have Obama talking about merging NASA and the Air Force. Where are the people disgusted that he is weaponizing space? Where is the outrage?

The parent was being silly. Although the Air Force funded some of their development, the Atlas V and Delta IV are commercial rockets operated by Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. In fact, NASA (as well as a number of commercial companies) already launch payloads on them regularly. The only question is whether in the future those payloads will include humans.

No matter who is running NASA, Congress (i.e. the U.S. taxpayer) pays the bills, and
Congress tells NASA what its priorities are. Congress told
NASA to flush billions down the toilet that is ISS. Congress told
NASA to go back to the Moon, but didn't give them
any money to do it with. Congress (and the President) can
change NASA's priorities in minutes, with no warning or
appeal.

In the 1960s NASA had clear direction and lots of money, and they
landed men on the Moon. Now they have neither, and
have been go

TFA laments the loss of the ability to repair satellites in space, and states that the shuttles have carried out 10 repair missions, 5 of them on the Hubble. Okay, Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org] that the total cost of the space shuttle program has been 170 billion (in 2008 dollars), which works out to 1.5 billion per flight over 124 flights. So if the shuttle has only carried out 10 repairs in 124 flights, repairs clearly aren't one of its major missions.

Ms. Garver has been hyper critical of the Ares project (both I and V) and has tended to push Direct. In light of the current status of Ares I, I will be curious to see where this goes. I have to wonder if Garver was appointed by Obama or by Bolden.

Bolden is black, just like Obama. That's pretty cool.
Maybe it's just your ignorance, but how many of you didn't realize we had astronauts of many different races and creeds?

Where the hell did this comment come from, and why is it being modded up? To whose ignorance are you referring? Why is it particularly cool that the NASA administrator and the president are the same color? Would it be less cool if he were some other color? Can you rank for us the various color permutations in order of coolness?

Considering where we are going as a race is going to be important soon since we're starting to drain a lot of resources on Earth.

It's also not a good idea to keep "all of our eggs in one basket." Stepping off to other planets will not only give us access to a whole new set of resources but could be important if there was a mass extinction event on Earth.

The environmentalist idiots want to treat Earth as a closed system. No resources available from off-planet. They do not understand what that means, but they think it is a smart idea anyway.

I believe it is an important mission to teach them what is means.

When was the Earth last "sustainable", meaning that natural processes recycled wastes as fast (or faster) than they were produced? Oh, I'd say somewhere around 1800 or so. Maybe 1850. Certainly no later than that. Given that population level and a heal

This may come as a shock to you, but there are a number of environmentalists, myself among them, who agree completely that using off-world resources and finding (or creating) places other than Earth where large numbers of people can live is a Really Good Idea. The problem is time. Even if every industrialized nation in the world committed themselves right now to a serious, well-funded program of space resource utilization and colonization, it would be a generation before the materiel started coming back t

First and foremost, there are more and better accessible resources of nearly every kind to be found in space. Contrary to detractors of this issue, the problem isn't getting the stuff to the Earth, but rather getting there in the first place with enough equipment to obtain those resources in the first place.

By resources, I mean heavy metals (gold, silver, platinum, iron, copper, aluminum, uranium, and much more) and energy that is available in such staggering amounts that it boggles the mind to even comprehend what is available. All of these can be obtained using existing technologies, or with technologies that have at least had some minor demonstration projects that aren't really exotic or different from what we are already doing on the Earth. Indeed, reducing iron oxide to pure iron is much, much easier to do in space and even beneficial for its "pollutants" (mainly oxygen).

On top of all this, these minerals and resources can be obtained with a much more minimal impact on the environment here on the Earth. If you genuinely are concerned about global warming, trying to figure out how to feed a growing global population, learning how to predict and avoid natural disasters like tsuamis and hurricanes.... all of this demands a strong and growing presence in space.

If that weren't enough, the countries and peoples that "control the high ground" will also have the military advantage in any future conflicts. Simply put, if the country you are in doesn't have a strong presence in space (or have a strong ally in space), you are screwed and doomed to be invaded or destroyed as a nation. The economic rationale is a strong one and has a huge and more immediate impact, but this military issue is all that more important to remember, and ultimately the one that got America and Russia into space in the first place. Worries about weapons in space are misplaced.... they are already there and have been deployed there for decades, regardless of what governments may have said in the past.

In addition to all of the above reasons, whenever people get into a new situation and have to work on solutions for new problems, that knowledge gained from living in that new environment can be adapted to other situations back in more familiar territory. Just being in a new situation will allow neural synapses to be organized in a new configuration within your brain, meaning that you are literally going to be thinking differently than others who have not been in that situation, such as being an astronaut in space. This is going to give a diversity of experience that will ultimately enrich all of humanity just simply by being there at all. For this reason alone, it is a pity that more people have not been to the Moon than the dozen men that went there.... we certainly don't have a female perspective of what it is like to walk on the Moon.

The scientific, political, and cultural knowledge that can be gained by going into space is something that is literally immeasurable. If we don't get into space and stay there... and expand our presence in space, humanity is doomed to extinction. It will have also been a waste of life for us to not get there.

Now as to if NASA is the best way to accomplish the task of going into space for Americans, that is something of a much more worthy debate. The key to unleashing the potential of space exploration is to drastically reduce the cost of getting up there in the first place. Common ordinary citizens need to have the ability to go up there and become prospectors, settlers, amateur explorers, and artists... and do so without having a government hand-out to get there.

NASA has supposedly been trying to reduce the cost of going into space with multiple vehicle prototypes like the Space Shuttle, Venture Star, DC-X, and so many other vehicles that it is nearly impossible to name all of the vehicle designs that have been proposed and in many cases had some initial hardware built for those designs. It

We colonised, traded, eventually enslaved, because there were things to extract, sell, harvest. It's the Moon we're talking about here, a huge desert from which nothing profitable can come from, not even Helium 3.

And what on Earth makes you think that a Moon base would be cheaper than a space station?? I can't begin to fathom what would make you think that letting a cluster of airtight tanks at our door step would be easier than building, manning and maintaining a fucking village on the Moon. And what for a

a huge desert from which nothing profitable can come from, not even Helium 3

And your basis for this sweeping declaration is... what, exactly?

there were things to extract, sell, harvest

The Great Plains were once called "the Great American Desert." And with the technology of the time, they were; it took a significant portion of the 19th c. to develop agricultural technology that made farming in, say, Kansas a viable proposition. Once that technology was in place, the "desert" became the breadbasket of the world.

lol. What you did there is a variant of the "they said Galileo was wrong" fallacy, that is "We though X was worthless, but X turned out to be great, Y seems worthless, therefore Y will surely turn out to be worth it".

Besides a logical fallacy, do you have anything going for your argument that there's anything to be done on the Moon? (I mean precise stuff, not "maybe in the future we'll have ideas").

A wide variety of mining and manufacturing operations which have already been proposed for the Moon, by people who have studied the idea in great detail. This information is widely available, and it's not my job to educate you on the subject. If you were interested in having an a rational debate, I might be willing to give you a few pointers, but you've pretty much declared that you're already at the "my mind is made up, don't confuse me with facts" stage. Enjoy your ignorance.

Well I've read many proposals for mining operations on the Moon (manufacturing, are you sure?) but I've also read rebuttals about why they'd be uneconomical and other reasons why they'd be undesirable, hence why I'm asking what you'd consider an actually viable plan.

But since you declined doing so I must declare victory and hence I accept your apology.